1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a power supply apparatus, and more particularly to a power supply apparatus integrated with a scanning module.
2. Related Art
Along with the popularization of portable electronic devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, and laptop computers, not only the processing and application of electronic data but also the life style and working mode of people have been greatly changed. With these portable electronic devices capable of processing data anytime and anywhere and the mature wireless communication networks, the era of mobile commerce comes. As for the mode of mobile commerce, laptop computers can store a large quantity of information, process and execute various types of information, and can be used with a projector to give presentation. Therefore, the laptop computers have become necessary tools for businessmen. For example, during meetings of most enterprises, participants often take laptop computers with them to input or share information anytime, and thus almost all information exchange is electrical. However, paper documents are still required in many occasions, and the most convenient way to convert the paper documents to electronic information is to scan the documents with a scanner. Currently, scanners are classified into desktop scanners and handheld scanners. When a scanner is used to scan paper documents, the scanner must be connected to a power source and connected to a laptop computer with a transmission line. However, it is inconvenient to the mobile commerce for businessmen. Moreover, though the handheld scanner is smaller than the desktop scanner in size and is convenient to carry, an additional device must be carried, which is an additional burden to mobile commerce dealers.
In order to solve this problem, Taiwan Patent Publication No. 356259, Taiwan Patent Publication No. 547694, and Taiwan Patent Publication No. 587744 provide laptop computers having a scanning apparatus. For example, a flatbed scanner disclosed in Patent No. 356259 is added with a flat panel display, a keyboard, and a computer host, so that the flatbed scanner and a laptop computer are integrated as whole. However, Patent No. 356259 uses the flatbed scanner as a main architecture, which results in a heavy weight and large volume in practice. Thus, it is difficult to implement this concept. A handheld scanner disclosed in Patent No. 547694 is assembled on a laptop computer. Accordingly, the laptop computer must have a corresponding mechanical design such as an accommodation slot matching the handheld computer (the corresponding accommodation slot is opened in the monitor as disclosed in Patent No. 547694) and a corresponding electronic design such as a power supply loop for providing power required by the handheld scanner and a signal loop for signal transmission. Currently, laptop computers are quite mature electronic devices, while Patent No. 547694 must change the original design of laptop computers substantially, which definitely incurs the increase of cost and may not be adopted by laptop computer designers and manufacturers. In addition, the design of the laptop computer with a scanning function of Patent No. 587744 also changes the original design of laptop computer substantially (including the mechanical and electronic parts), so it is still difficult to implement this design.